Tuesday, 8 March 2016

Samsung has officially announced the launch of its flagship smartphones the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge in India. Pre-bookings for the two smartphones that were unveiled at MWC 2016 last month open on Wednesday, with the smartphones available from March 18. Those who pre-book the smartphones by March 17 will receive the Samsung Gear VR headset bundled for free.

The Samsung Galaxy S7 has been priced in India at Rs. 48,900, while the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge will be available at Rs. 56,900 - both prices for the 32GB variant. The price for the 64GB variant has not been announced at this stage.

The Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge come with a new Samsung Concierge service that's available inside the My Galaxy app. The Samsung Concierge service comes with four key benefits: My Assistant (powered by Haptik) that will let customers order flowers, do Web check-in, set reminders, and use other services; Fast Track access at Samsung service centres; Phone Pickup & Drop with access to a standby device if your Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge need to be repaired; and Chat With Samsung customer support that will answer everyday question about your device like "How do I enable Hotspot?".Samsung says all services will be available to Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge customers free of cost, and it might be extended to Galaxy S6 and Note 5 customers at a later stage.

As expected, the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge launched in India come with Samsung's octa-core Exynos 8890 SoC instead of the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chipset seen in the global variant. Perhaps the most welcome change from their predecessors is the inclusion of the hybrid microSD slot in the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge, which means you can either expand your storage up to 200GB or use it as the second SIM slot.​

In terms of other specifications, the Samsung Galaxy S7 features a 5.1-inch QHD Super Amoled display, while the Galaxy S7 Edge packs a 5.5-inch QHD Super Amoled display. The always-on display lets users check notifications, time, and date without having to wake up the device. Both phones come with 4GB of RAM, a 12-megapixel 'Dual Pixel' rear camera with an f/1.7 aperture and smart OIS feature, as well as a 5-megapixel front camera with f/1.7 aperture.

The Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge run Android 6.0 Marshmallow, and have IP68 rating for dust and water resistance. The Galaxy S7 packs a 3000mAh battery while the Galaxy S7 Edge includes a 3600mAh battery.